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Angel experience

I have had my CA account for some time now, however I have not been active. Time has come to change that and I think the best way to do it is to share what I have been doing and learning over the last few years.

Since April 2007 i have been studding in the Angel Academy of Art in Florence and have been learning more than i dreamed.

Here are some of my works in more or less chronological order, ill also add a quick description of each stage of the program as far as I have gotten, I hope you like it and comments are most definitely welcome.

Bargue Drawings
The first part of the program consists on a series of four copies of Charles Bargue's drawings from his drawing course.
The students starts with a simple copy which focuses mainly on shapes and a minimum amount of values and as they move on each successive drawing gets more complex and starts dealing with more complicated shapes, values, sense of volume, texture, etc.
The objective of this exercises is to start training the eye of the students and to familiarize them with the drawing process that they will be using throughout the program.

Charcoal Drawings

The next phase of the program is charcoal drawing from a plaster cast, so once the students has had the experience of copying increasingly complicated drawings that teach them how to create the illusion of form in a 2d surface, now it is time to apply this knowledge to drawing from a 3d object.
The method used is sight size. In this Method you choose a fixed spot where you stand looking at the subject you are drawing, the general rule is that you stand at 3 times the greatest dimension of your drawing, so, for example, if your drawing is 1 meter tall or 1 meter wide, then you would stand 3 meters away. when drawing a cast, the easel is usually put right next to the it so you get a drawing there is exactly the same size as the cast.

Here the students need to start using their eyes more, because even tough measurements are taken, they will never be as precise as the once made from a flat 2d drawing.

The student needs to complete two charcoal casts in order to move on to the next phase of the program. Once again the student starts with a simple cast and then moves on to a more complicated one.

Gray scale painting

Once the charcoals are done the next step is painting, however, to make the transition from drawing to painting a bit smoother the students make a painting using just black, white and raw umber (to balance the temperature of the painting). This way they face the challenge of learning to use a whole new medium but the principles used in drawing are steal peaty much the same.
However, as this is painting, the process is different from the one used in drawing and here are the steps:
Drawing stage
Using charcoal or raw umber the student makes a drawing of the cast using sight size. The idea is to get the correct proportions and a basic division of lights and shadows, its best to keep it simple, both the outline and the shadow shapes. This can be done directly on the canvas or (if you are want to use graphite) one a peace of paper from which you can then transfer* the drawing to your canvas.
First painting
In this step the student gets the mayor values and starts giving the sense of form and volume to the painting, at this pint all small details are ignored, the important thing is the big picture and the relationship of value of the cast.

Second painting
Once the general information is in the student starts putting in the more subtle details of the cast; smaller shapes, texture, transitions between light and shadow, smaller volumes, etc
After this it is always good to look at the final painting and see if there is anything that need retouching. Once this is done, the painting is finished =)

....to be hones I donít like the painting I made...and the sculpture is horrible, but any way, all for the sake of learning =)

*how to transfer a drawing from paper to canvas
1. Once your drawing is done you take a peace of tracing paper and put it over it. Tape it down so it wonít move.
2. Using a soft tip thin marker of any color trace over your drawing
3. Flip the tracing paper and put charcoal under the marker likes
4.Tape your tracing paper to the canvas where you will be painting with the side that has the charcoal touching the it.
5. Using another marker of a different color (it can be the same but its easier to see if you missed any spots if you use a different color) go over your old marker lines.
6. Lift the tracing paper from you canvas, always leaving one side of it taped to the canvas in case you need to go over it again and you should have a charcoal outline of your drawing on your canvas, if any lines are not clear just put the paper back and go over them again.
7. Use some raw umber and some turpentine to go over the lines so they donít get erased when you start painting.
8. Make a great painting.

Hey man! It was nice seeing one of your drawings in progress. All I can say is that this thread is going to get more exciting! I will definetely keep checking out your thread. You're doing great at Angel Acadamy and your effort is clearly visible. Great work!

Color Painting

The next phase is color painting
The student has to do 2 collor paintings before moveing to the next part of the program.
The process is the pretty much the same as with the gray scale painting just with one more step:
Dead coloring
After getting the drawing of the object you are painting you rough in your best estimate for the general colors of each part, so taking the example of my first painting, the background wall was a yellow- green where it was light and pure black in the shadow side, the wood was an ochre yellow. the cast, being mostly white, is left untouched until the next step which would be first painting.

My second painting is finished, Iím just waiting for it to dry up and then ill put it up

Figure drawing

From the beginning of the program the student does figure drawing as well as the copies and the cast drawings, changing the materials they work with according to what project they are currently working on, so if the student id doing Bargue drawings then he will be drawing the model with graphite, if he is doing charcoal cast drawings then the figure will be done in charcoal and when he moves into painting he'll start painting the figure.

these are AMAZING. this vane of art is really where I am working towards, you are a very developed artist

you say alot about the exercises you are doing, but can you share some techniques? how did you get such accurate and smooth gradients with charcoal and your pencil drawings? are there any things in that respect that you are learning there that you werent elsewhere?

Fantastic work! Thanks so much for sharing your work with us! Your cast painting of Michelangelo's 'dawn' (or whatever it's called) is very well done, especially the colour work. I've noticed that ateliers seem to be lacking on their colour theory skills, but your cast has great recognition of the hues in white. Well done! I'll be sure to look for updates!

these are AMAZING. this vane of art is really where I am working towards, you are a very developed artist

you say alot about the exercises you are doing, but can you share some techniques? how did you get such accurate and smooth gradients with charcoal and your pencil drawings? are there any things in that respect that you are learning there that you werent elsewhere?

thanks

Hi Sartorius
Sorry it took me so long to answer
To answer your questions:
The accuracy was built pretty much with practice (and I am not terribly accurate, there are people who are waaay better) there are different exercises that can help you improve your capacity for perceiving shapes and putting them on paper:
Take a peace of paper and using a ruler draw a triangle, a small one will do, now, focusing on the angles, the since of the lines, the distance between the 3 points and general form of the triangle try to draw another one that is the same, once you think you have it as perfect as you can, use some tracing paper and trace your second triangle, put it over the first one and see how well you did, this will help you in your perception of abstract shapes, which is a fundamental for drawing. As you get better you can start doing more difficult shapes eventually adding more sides or curves or doing 2 shapes. or you can start doing copies of drawings and occurs start applying the way you think when you do this exercises to when you draw from life.
And remember, always go from the most general to the most specific.

As for the gradients....well, to simplify things lets say that when I start a drawing the first thing is to make a line drawing that establishes the outline of the figure and separates the lights from the shadows, once you have that you fill the shadows with a general flat tone. Now, with charcoal you can use brushed to drag the charcoal dust from the shadows into the halftones to create a smooth transition, but you can also use charcoal sticks with a fine point. With graphite the process is similar, you can use brushes to drag some of the tone from the shadows or use a sharp pencil....it is hard to describe it in word but what you can do is draw geometrical figures, like cylinders, put part of the cylinder in shadow and then experiment with brushes and stumps or with sharpened charcoal sticks, remember that you want to make the form turn and see if you can get a smooth transition.

As to what Iím learning here....well, yes, there are lots of things I wasnít learning before: The different step by step processes to make a drawing or a painting, what to look for what drawing, how light works, how form works, anatomy, conceptualization, structure, planes and I most important of all, how to see. I donít think drawing is a manual skill, at least not mainly, it is a visual/conceptual skill. Richard Schmid says that you need more motor skill to write your name than you need to pain.

If you want to get more accurate then start training your eye, observe; proportions, angles, alignments, distances, negative spaces. use anything you can to help you draw your subject accurately, and look for information, we have the greater luck of living in the age of information, what you cant find in books you can find in internet trough websites or people.

If my rather long reply has left more doubts than answers...please let me know and ill try to answer them =)

Hey zoruel thanks for sharing your studies. They are beautiful to look at and the level of realism is astounding to me. My favourite study is your colour painting I don't think I would ever tire at looking at it. I really do admire you and thank you for inspiring me. I'm really looking forward to your posts